Justin Richards - The Death Collector

Pale, watery eyes fixed on George. Was there a flicker of recognition, somewhere deep behind the irises? Or was it just a trick of the light? Whatever it was, George was unable to take his own eyes off the face. The face of what had once been a man.

Had once been a man he knew.

‘Albert?’ George said, the word sticking in his dry throat. ‘Albert Wilkes?’

The grotesque figure inside the metal frame swung round, surveying the room. Moist, unblinking eyes were fixed on Eddie. Long arms stretched out, metal braces holding them rigid as they reached for the boy.

Eddie scrambled backwards. ‘What do you want?’ His voice was shaking.

‘Just keep out of its way.’ George had to shout to make himself heard above the steam and the pistons and the gears. There was something else too — the groaning and whimpering of Albert Wilkes as he made his tortuous way across the room towards Eddie.

‘God help us,’ Eddie was murmuring. ‘Don’t let it get me.’ He was at the back of the room now. He grabbed an empty glass beaker off a shelf and hurled it at the Wilkes-creature. The glass shattered across the metal frame, fragments lodging in the man’s face. But he did not so much as blink, not so much as slow down as he advanced on the cowering Eddie.

‘Leave the boy,’ Sir William yelled. ‘It’s not him you want, is it? It’s this!’ He was holding up the slip of paper from Glick’s diary — the only thing they had left to bargain with. ‘Here — take it!’

The creature paused to look at Sir William through rheumy eyes. But only for a moment, then it turned away again, back towards Eddie.

George could not just stand by and let the thing — the thing that had been his friend — attack Eddie. He ran across and grabbed the enormous arms, the metal cold, biting into him as he tried to force the arms back, tried to push the thing away. George’s face was close to Albert’s, and he could taste the oil hanging in the air around him. The bloodless lips were moving.

‘George?’ Wilkes murmured. His eyes were unfocussed. ‘George is that you?’ The voice was barely more than a whisper, a plea. ‘Help me. Please, help me. I tried to contact you before … Heard your call …’ George could hear tears in the voice, tears that had not been allowed to reach the eyes. ‘I’m sorry … I can’t …’

Then George felt himself being pushed away. Gently at first, then as if another gear had kicked in, he was flung across the room, smashing into the shelves on the wall, falling to the floor bringing wooden shelves, glassware, specimens crashing down on top of him.

He shook his head to clear his vision, just in time to see Liz snatch the slip of paper from Sir William’s hands and run towards the advancing figure of Wilkes. She was waving the paper, shouting at the creature:

‘Here — this is what you want. Take it!’

She thrust the paper into Wilkes’s face. But he ignored it. As if he was swatting at an annoying fly, one of Wilkes’s metal-framed arms lashed out. It caught Liz across the shoulder and sent her flying backwards. George cried out as she cartwheeled, and spun across the workbench. Even above the clanking of the engines and the hiss of the steam, George heard the sickening crack as Liz’s head hit the floor. She struggled to sit up — seemed all right.

But then her eyes flickered, and she slumped backwards.

‘No!’ George cried, scrambling across the floor, ignoring the broken glass cutting into his hands. He struggled to get to Liz, praying she was all right.

As he cradled her unconscious head, George became aware of movement in the doorway. Two of Lorimore’s thugs were standing inside the room. Framed between them was Lorimore himself. His lean face distorted by a mixture of anger and triumph, he stared at George for a moment before dismissing him and turning to watch his ghastly creation close in on Eddie.

Sir William was pleading and arguing with the creature that had once been Albert Wilkes. ‘Listen to me — if there is any reasoning part of your mind still there, please listen. There must be something. Lorimore is using the motor centres of your brain to operate this thing . He’s revived you using electrical stimulation or some such technique. Fight against it — try to think for yourself. I know you are dead, but there must be something left …’

But it did no good. Sir William too was finally pushed aside.

There was only Eddie left — defiant now against the wall. He was looking at George and the unconscious Liz, his face white with fury. With a sudden shock, George realised that Eddie too had recognised Albert Wilkes — perhaps he blamed himself for not saving the old man from this fate. Whatever the reason, he was no longer scared, he was seething.

He put one hand in his jacket pocket. He pointed at Lorimore with the other. ‘It’s you that’s the monster,’ Eddie yelled. ‘You’re inhuman, you are.’

Lorimore just laughed. A dry cackle that was all but lost in the noise of his creation.

This infuriated Eddie still further. He charged, shouldering the metal-framed creature aside, and forcing it back several paces. It recovered at once, metal joints springing, reaching out for Eddie and grabbing at him as he passed. Knife-like metal fingers snapped shut on his jacket.

But Eddie ignored this. He was still yelling at Lorimore though his words were lost in a cloud of angry steam. Then he had his hand out of his pocket, and brandishing his treasured stone like a weapon, he hurled it with all his strength.

Lorimore ducked, surprised. The stone thumped into the splintered woodwork which was all that remained of the door.

From Lorimore’s scream, George assumed the stone had hit him. He dropped to his knees by the door and scooped up the stone from where it had fallen. He cradled it in his hands, as if afraid it might have been damaged by the impact. His eyes were wide, shining as if lit from within as he backed slowly out of the room, holding the stone reverently in his cupped hands.

‘What’s going on?’ George exclaimed, but his words were drowned out by the metallic clanking of Albert Wilkes as he strode mechanically past.

In the doorway, Blade was shouting for Wilkes to hurry up. Eddie looked both relieved and perplexed. Sir William’s expression was unreadable.

‘At last,’ Lorimore’s words floated shrilly back to where George still cradled the unconscious Liz. ‘At last, I have it. The final link in the great chain of life. Now, I can finally bring my dreams to life.’ Then even his voice was gone. As if he had already forgotten about George and the others, or dismissed them as irrelevant.

‘What was he talking about?’ George demanded.

‘It’s just an old stone,’ Eddie was saying.

Sir William was rubbing his forehead. ‘No. No it’s not.’ He wiped his hand away from his face, looking much older now than he had even moments before. ‘Don’t you see? That’s what he was after all the time. That’s what he wanted. Not the page from Glick’s diary — he just needed that to lead him to that fossil. If only I had realised sooner. “I know which came first,” was a clue sure enough. And we missed its meaning completely.’ He shook his head in regret. ‘He must have known we had it, Berry told him we’d found it — that we’d followed Glick’s clue and saved him the trouble of solving it himself. And now …’ He sighed, coming to a decision. ‘We have to get it back.’

‘But why?’ Eddie wanted to know.

George was beginning to realise. ‘So, it’s not just an old stone. It’s a fossil.’

‘So what?’

‘So what?’ Sir William countered. ‘You want to live in a world where people are turned into the sort of creature we just witnessed? Where even the dead are not permitted to rest in peace? Where abominations like what poor Albert has become populate the factories, the foundries, even the army?’